In an attempt to restrain myself from blabbing on and on about the rugrats, I've started a blog to upload photos and videos and the occasional story for your internet browsing pleasure.
We crammed in a lot of activities into the week before school started! (Seriously, this first picture is from August 6th and school stared on August 15th.) Our friend Hattie got to spend a couple of days with us. We went to the park - James is cranky because it was hot.
Google made me a gif:
She also got to come along to piano lessons, where there are crayons for sibs out in the waiting room.
Sam had a coupon to Bonkers:
I took them to Little Swimmers at the ARC:
And we met up with friends at the nice, new aquatic facility in Boonville:
Leah came along on a date to Las Margaritas and watched the geese:
And then I wanted them to have a nice time for their last day home before school started, so we had pancakes for breakfast and spent the morning at Stephen's Lake, and then got smoothies from Dairy Queen. I got a few photos of the lake portion - mostly of Leah since I have to stick right by her.
I told them to strike a pose.
And then here are a couple that I've taken since school has started. I'm trying to take Leah to story time regularly. She likes the "el-phans."
"My dog laughing," she says:
And then she tagged along to James's doctors appointment and talked him into reading books.
The big kids had their first day of school this morning!
We are going to try to ride the bus again this year, but it comes so early in the morning - over an hour before school starts! And their elementary has the earliest start time in the district, I think.
James is six and starting first grade.
Amelie is nine and starting fourth grade. Amelie's moved up to Unit C and has a whole new teacher.
This photo is my favorite! Sam taking their picture bright and early this morning.
Isn't this a good picture? They look so much bigger than last year.
Last year for comparison:
Now I guess we always have to get them to stand on the same side of the big rock.
They've got a new bus driver, who was surprisingly on time this morning, but an hour late coming home this afternoon.
Leah and I stayed home and had a quiet, peaceful day - she even took a nap! Here she is eating goldfish crackers (which are supposed to be for the big kids' school snack) out of a bowl with a spoon, as one does.
So Leah can crawl out of her crib. We put a twin mattress on the floor for her, and then when we were in the bootheel for the weekend, Sam built her a big kid bed.
She was incredibly excited to find it when we got back. "MY BIG GIRL BED!" She wanted to show and tell everyone about it. James wanted to play with her, and she basically shouted, "big girl bed," over her shoulder as she ran toward it (and usually she is all about playing with James!)
This picture doesn't even do it justice. It was pure, unadulterated joy.
Unfortunately, this extreme excitement led to a late bedtime. Naptime has also become somewhat drawn out since she could escape the crib. She's not contained anymore and sometimes plays with things in her room instead of sleeping (or for a while before sleeping, which means she wants to sleep late into the afternoon, so then I have to wake her up so it won't throw off bedtime too much.) However, it's now four days later and she's still very impressed.
I forgot to post about Amelie selling girl scout cookies. This was our first year selling (and I hadn't even gotten her Brownie uniform, so she walked around in her Daisy bib).
She sold over 80 boxes just walking around our neighborhood. Leah came with us in the stroller. (Her very useful baby coat was a gift from my friend Amanda!)
She ended up with credit for over 150 boxes since the troop did a few booths as well - which is pretty impressive since the period we had to sell was fairly short and the weather was just awful for almost all of it. (These pictures were from the one nice weekend in February.)
Here's Amelie in her Brownie vest. She was not too enthused about taking a photo.
And she got some cool patches for the back, too.
And some pictures from Girl Scout camping. Aunt Holly loaned us her big nice tent, and we practiced putting it up in our yard. It takes 4 people to hold the poles - James, Amelie and I were trying, but not quite managing. Amelie said, "I'll go get Edward!" ran next door, procured our 6-year-old neighbor, and we got the tent up.
On the morning of the camping trip 1) had to tell her not to pack library books 2) conceded that she could take one of our paperbacks 3) she tried to sneak a Kindle into her bag 4) lost her water bottle within 15 minutes of getting to camp 5) I got a call from the nurse after dropping her off that she’d been stung by a bee
For the second year in a row, we went to the YMCA Trout Lodge near Potosi, MO for MUUSA (Midwest Unitarian Universalist Summer Assembly). We had a great time, and the weather was nice besides a couple days when it rained some.
We stopped and had Mexican food in Linn on the way over. There were churros.
I got a tip from the photography class that I was in to take a photo of the signs - it helps to organize the photos when you're looking back at past trips. However, I learned this tip after we arrived, so I stole this one from google images.
We stayed in the same room as last year - up in the lodge, which makes it quite a bit more like a hotel room than camp. The kids packed a perfectly reasonable amount of books to take for one week.
This was right after we got there and I had to include this photo even though it's blurry.
There was a great deal of discussion about what the room arrangement should be, since we had the two queen beds, a pack and play for Leah, and two roll-away cots. Last year, the big kids were on the cots in the loft and Leah was in the pack-and-play downstairs with us. This year, they decided to claim the other big bed and we put Leah up in the loft area. (I took several pictures looking down at them from the loft.) Look at that thumb-sucker.
More reading. Good thing someone packed a whole backpack full of books.
This is how I get my exercise in. Look at that grin!
Sam out on the deck with a view of Sunnen Lake.
There was facepaint and James wanted Batman.
Nine years old! So big! Amelie out on the dock. You can also see that the big kids spent a significant portion of the time in their swim stuff, just in case the opportunity arose.
Same played the cajon several nights at the coffee house - this was his solo.
Updated to add video:
There were also lots of balloon animals (and we came home with extra balloons and a pump to make our own). James came up with this game where the fan would blow his balloon up in the air when he let go.
No fireworks, but a lively glow-in-the-dark fourth of July parade. (Which actually took place on the 5th of July since it was raining on the 4th.)
Leah made friends in the nursery!
And got to ride a pony!
They were supposed to have long pants for the pony ride, but apparently we didn't pack any for her. I discovered that a pair of James's 6T shorts works out pretty well as a substitute for 2T pants.
Leah wouldn't wave because earlier they'd told her to hold on tight, and she was taking the process very seriously.
James and Amelie at the morning assembly. James later told me that he lost his hat "in the ocean!!" (I guess if flew off while he was on the boat on the lake.)
My friend Amanda asked about how the camp is organized - the kids were set up in programming for a block of time in the morning and in the afternoon. We'd drop Leah at the nursery, go to morning assembly together, and then they released the kids to their classes. Sam and I signed up for tai chi in the morning, and when that was through, we'd pick the kids back up for lunch since there was a break from noon to 1:30. Then, we'd drop everybody off again and do our afternoon classes (or just hang out) til 3:30, so we still got to spend the afternoon, dinner, and evening with the kids.
The meals were set up cafeteria buffet style, and James was Very Impressed with the sugary breakfast cereals.
Sam and James on a different day:
Sam can hula-hoop! Who knew?
James wielding his mini-golf putter like a sword, as one does.
I brought a box of markers and drawing paper for downtime. James took advantage.
Walking back from arts and crafts. We came home with several painted ceramics that are now displayed on the mantle.
Leah is probably saying "Be quiet, Dada!" in this picture.
We spent several evenings at the lake/beach area.
James looks like he's in over his head wrangling the baby.
We took the kids for ice cream, but they decided to get these everlasting lollipops instead. (Amelie's still working on hers one week later! Sam is insisting that we just throw it out, due to germs.)
James was impressed with the way the lollipop turned his whole tongue white, but he was a little disappointed in the flavor (when I asked what kind it was, he eventually came up with "sugar") and ended up trading with Leah for her ice cream.
I went on a hike (and got a little lost) and saw this interesting red mushroom.
I came home with several bug bites. Here's a selfie:
I took a photography class, despite only bringing my iPhone. I learned how to build a light box and took this artistic photograph of a seashell:
This shows the construction of the light box a little bit:
Another assignment for the class was to photograph dominoes falling, but my phone wasn't quite up to the task. It did make this gif, though, and I had a fun time on set-up duty.
